This project concerns continued efforts to construct, validate, and norm a set of proficiency tests for Emergency Medical Technicians. Additionally, it involves investigation of the implications for imporving Emergency Medical manpower development resulting from "spin- off" findings of the study, such as functional task inventories, differentiation determined through evaluation between and among various practicing EMT's, and possible findings of consistent incapacities to achieve adequately on identified portions of the proficiency tests. Earlier, under Public Health Service Grant IR18HS01056-01 HSDG, an initial form of a proficiency test for EMT's was constructed. Validation and norming studies were done. During a six months extension to the earlier project, the basic test is being refined and administered to a definitive population (all practicing EMT's in the State of Alabama). From this study, it is expected that reliable norms for this population can be established; differentiation can be made between expectations for various levels (III's and II's for example); and the test instrument validity be further established. Even though there has been significant success in carrying out the objectives of the earlier project, there remains much to be done-- additional forms of the test must be available, otherwise compromise will nullify the reliable use of the test quite soon, tentative norms need to be verified, test scores need to be validated further through longitudinal studies based on supervisory performance ratings, specific performance evaluations need to be administered and correlated with paper-pencil exercises to determine if performance testing is essential to reliable measurement of competency or if the more economical paper- pencil approach will suffice, and the content and teaching approaches of established training programs need to be analyzed for suitability in terms of test results. The proposed project deals with these problems.